U.S. Semantic Technologies Symposium 2018

News: US2TS 2019 site is live: US2TS 2019

News: Pictures from the event are available here.

News: We have reached the capacity limit for the event at 120 people. Please contact Pascal Hitzler (pascal.hitzler@wright.edu) to get put on a waiting list.

Semantic Web is an inherently multi-disciplinary field. The Artificial Intelligence community has contributed much in the way of formal logic and knowledge representation. Similarly, the applied computer science community, along with industry and government agencies, have contributed with application development and testing. With an ever-growing dependence on the web, and the continuously increasing importance of large-scale data sharing, integration, and reuse, natural science researchers, geoscience, biology, library science, health care, the humanities, just to name a few, have also taken an increasing interest in the Semantic Web. Large-scale industrial applications are under way or already deployed.

Yet, the division between computer science, natural science, and academia/government/industry, has a downside. It limits the formation of a coherent national agenda for exploring emerging trends in Semantic Technologies. What are needed are community consolidation and the building of a U.S.-based community research network.

The goal of the 1st U.S. Semantic Technologies Symposium is to bring together the U.S. Semantic Web community and begin forming such a research network. We aim to achieve this by supporting communication across disciplinary, organizational, and geographical boundaries. The Symposium will provide a forum by which participants can share information and ideas, coordinate ongoing or planned research activities, foster synthesis and new collaborations, develop community standards, and advance their science and education through communication and the sharing of ideas.

To this end, the Symposium will be an informal gathering with plenty of time for discussion and breakout sessions. We encourage anyone with an interest in the Semantic Web, regardless of field, to attend.

We already have a committment by some community leaders to attend and organize sessions at the event:

Achille Fokoue, IBM TJ Watson Research Center
Karl Grossner, World History Center, University of Pittsburgh
Jim Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Chris Mungall, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Confirmed invited speakers/panelists are:

Chaitan Baru, National Science Foundation
David Booth, Yosemite Project
Dan Brickley, Google
Tim Finin, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Peter Fox, Rensselaer Polytechnics Institute
Michael Grüninger, University of Toronto
Melissa Haendel, Oregon Health & Science University
Eric Kansa, OpenContext
Craig Knoblock, University of Southern California
Werner Kuhn, University of California, Santa Barbara
Matt Lange, University of California, Davis
Deborah L. McGuinness, Rensselaer Polytechnics Institute
Rob Sanderson, J. Paul Getty Trust
Philip Schreur, Stanford Library
Ryan Shaw, University of North Carolina
Brian Ulicny, Thomson Reuters

At this stage, while we are planning the program, we would like to hear from the community about ideas, topics to include, additional groups to reach out to. Please send your thoughts to pascal.hitzler(at)wright.edu.

It is our intention to provide a presentation opportunity to everybody who attends, most likely by means of a poster session which will take place during an extended coffee break. For those who desire so, there will also be an opportunity to contribute technical or vision papers.

The symposium will be held as a two full days event on March 1 and 2, 2018. It will take place at Wright State University in Dayton, OH. We intend to make this a low-cost event.

Main Organizers: